Please note that our site uses cookies to provide basic functionality and feedback.
By continuing to use our site you accept this use. More information is provided in our privacy page.
Don't show me this again.

I cannot over-emphasise how important it is that this sort of research is published and available in the public domain. There is a move across Europe to exclude non-citizens from healthcare as a result of nationalist agendas and the threat of austerity. Marianne clearly demonstrates that healthcare access is a social process, highlighting the harm experienced by those excluded and the immense work required to gain inclusion.

―Dr. Jessica Potter, Queen Mary, University of London

What do undocumented migrants experience when they try to access healthcare? How do they navigate the (often contradictory) challenges presented by bureaucratic systems, financial pressures, attitudes to migrants, and their own healthcare needs?

This urgent study uses a grounded theory approach to explore the ways in which undocumented migrants are included in or excluded from healthcare in a Swiss region. Marianne Jossen explores the ways migrants try to obtain healthcare on their own, with the help of NGOs or via insurance, and how they cope if they fail, whether by using risky strategies to access healthcare or leaving serious health issues untreated. Jossen shows that even for those who succeed, inclusion remains partial and fraught with risks.

Based on interviews with migrants, health practitioners and NGO staff and using a rigorous academic approach, Undocumented Migrants and Healthcare is an important contribution to a vital contemporary issue. It is necessary reading for researchers in Public Health and Migration Studies, as well as government and non-governmental organisations in Switzerland and beyond. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with healthcare and migration in the twenty-first century.

The Stiftung Lindenhof Bern and the Swiss Red Cross have generously contributed to this publication.

Marianne Jossen is a Scientific Collaborator at the Swiss Federal Office of Health and the author of articles on various issues relating to healthcare, published in journals, edited collections and the media.

The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: